Every Congress for the past 25 years, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has introduced the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. Now, as his congressional career comes to an end, Durbin is looking for someone to inherit his signature issue.
There may not be one person. But there will certainly be someone.
“Several people have asked,” Durbin told MS NOW.
He said Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., are strong candidates to take the lead on the DREAM Act, but “there are others that are interested as well.”
“So I hope they put together a strong team,” Durbin said.
The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act has been a major Democratic priority for 25 years, ever since Durbin and the late Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, first cosponsored the legislation in 2001.
Although some versions of the bill have garnered as many as 48 cosponsors in the Senate over the years, the measure has never passed the upper chamber and has been losing steam in recent years, as both parties have taken a harder line over immigration. The closest lawmakers ever got to enacting the legislation was in 2010, when the bill passed the House and the Senate voted 55-41 to advance it, falling five votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.
While the vote was mainly split along party lines, five Democrats voted against the legislation, meaning the DREAM Act could have passed if those senators had supported the bill. Three Republican senators, after all, voted for the measure.
But since 2010, bipartisan support for the DREAM Act has been harder to find. Republicans who once cosponsored the legislation have long since distanced themselves from it, as “pathway to citizenship” becomes a forbidden phrase in the GOP.
And without sufficient Republican support, some Democrats have been hesitant to open themselves up to criticism for backing the legislation themselves. It has led Durbin to an increasingly fruitless — though not entirely lonely — pursuit to pass the DREAM Act.
Indeed, the DREAM Act has become synonymous with Durbin. He has made the legislation the defining issue of his 44-year career in Congress.
Now, with Durbin — the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate — leaving Congress at the end of the year, the DREAM Act is facing an even tougher path to passage. But that is not the only blow to the measure.
While Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., did not support the bill in 2010, he later repeatedly teamed up with Durbin on the legislation. Graham was the primary cosponsor for the bill in 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023.
Even though Graham pulled his support this Congress, Durbin clearly saw an opening with his South Carolina colleague — particularly if the immigration issue ever cooled down on the Republican side.
Now, with Graham gone, Durbin is looking to his replacement — Graham’s sister, Darline Graham — as a possible new Republican partner.
Durbin told MS NOW he actually has hope of converting the newly appointed senator.
“She’s new,” Durbin told MS NOW. “I’ll let her settle in a little bit. I will talk to her.”
That may be a difficult sell, if Darline Graham even wins the race to replace her brother. As Durbin knows, the GOP’s growing opposition to the DREAM Act is emblematic of the issue’s broader political problem.
For years, Durbin could point to a handful of Republicans who were willing to cross party lines for the legislation. But now, his bipartisan coalition has shrunk, and he is leaving the Senate with the DREAM Act in a tough spot.
Not that Durbin has failed to make progress on the legislation throughout his career.
In 2012, Durbin worked alongside then-President Barack Obama — once his close Senate partner from Illinois — to create the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, providing temporary protection to people who were brought to the U.S. as children.
But since the start of the second Trump administration, people with protected DACA status have been the target of new enforcement actions, including deportation efforts even when the status of some of those DACA recipients had not expired.
In June, Padilla and Cortez Masto joined Durbin and Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., on a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche raising legal concerns with the Justice Department’s decision to weaken DACA protections — another signal of who may take the reins on the DREAM Act when Durbin departs.
As Democrats know, the Trump administration’s actions have made it much harder to pass the DREAM Act. Even if the bill could get through Congress, Trump would almost certainly veto the legislation.
But Durbin says the DREAM Act still has some support inside the Republican conference — even if that support is mostly private. He told MS NOW that several GOP senators have told him that they have “got to do this” — meaning pass the DREAM Act — and have pushed Durbin to continue advocating for the legislation.
“They understand,” Durbin said of these Republicans.
One of the few GOP senators who continues to publicly support the DREAM Act is Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
Murkowski cosponsored the measure with Durbin at the start of this Congress in 2025, and she told MS NOW she has been talking with different colleagues about a path forward on immigration legislation.
Murkowski said that while the Trump administration has focused on securing the border, there is a “real recognition” within Congress that lawmakers need to address legal immigration.
“While we have paid attention to those who may be coming through illegally, we have not worked to address the concerns about an immigration process that isn’t working well for so many others,” Murkowski told MS NOW. “And so what we need to do to weigh in there, those are some of the really positive talks that we’ve been having.”
Although she has been having conversations with other senators, she said they have not worked anything out in terms of timing. Murkowski also did not answer whether she plans on reintroducing the DREAM Act specifically.
Murkowski’s continued involvement could be significant. She was one of three Republicans who voted for the DREAM Act in 2010, and Durbin said he knows that supporting the DREAM Act was “tough for her politically.”
Murkowski did it anyway.
“I respect her so much for it,” Durbin told MS NOW. “I’m going to plead with her to stick with it after I’m gone.”
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